Pakistan, May 28 -- The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has turned down the Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2025. The bill was sent by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and passed earlier by the National Assembly. During a meeting chaired by Dr. Allama Muhammad Raghib Hussain Naeemi, the Council ruled that setting a legal age for marriage and punishing early marriages does not align with Islamic teachings. It stressed that although early marriages should be discouraged, legal penalties are not acceptable in Islam.

Moreover, the CII declared that no proper request was made by the Senate or National Assembly to review the bill. It insisted that Islamic law does not fix a specific age for marriage. Instead, it focuses on physical and mental...